This chapter focuses on looking at multiple intelligences from a personal point of view, rather than just a way that students learn. It stresses how important it is for us as teachers to know and understand where our intelligences lie and how that might affect our teaching. If we are only teaching in a way that suits our intelligences, we are likely to leave behind many students that do not learn the way we do. The chapter also gives us insight into helping reach every kind of learner, including asking colleagues and even consulting the students themselves, but there are many other simple ways to reach all types of students. This chapter also stresses the importance of allowing these intelligences to flourish, and allowing students to discover and develop their intelligences.
Synthesis Chapter 2 MI
Cheyenne
Most members of our class highlighted the importance of understanding ourselves as learners before we can understand our students. It allows us to not only assess our strong points, but to make note of our weaknesses in order to better adapt and learn to incorporate them into our classes. There were some concerns about being able to address intelligences that we do not excel in, and one way to work on that may be to explore the other intelligences and develop them on our own. One thing that was noted several times is the fact that we are lacking in some MI areas, which means our students will be too. Incorporating all kinds of intelligences in our classes results in our students being exposed to them as well, and possibly excelling in an area they were either previously weak in, or had never had the chance to develop. Another thing that many of us focused on were the terms crystallizing and paralyzing experiences. Many of us are adamant about not letting our classes be a paralyzing experience for any students, and instead are determined to foster any developing intelligences we might notice in students.
Rhi
As we read more about MI, the more I consider how my students will relate and be different from each other... Many of the students will have similar intelligences considering there are only eight types, but each of them will be slightly different. Working with each student and finding out how they learn is something that I'm both nervous and excited about because there's only one teacher and there will be more students, yet they will each have their own individual ideas and preferences that they can bring to the class. The students will have their own ways of learning, as well as I have my own way of learning which then will reflect on how I teach. It's important to me that I understand how each of my students learn so that I can help them to get the most out of my classes. Differentiating each lesson will be crucial in incorporating and engaging every student into every lesson. First knowing how I learn helps me to then be able to work with students who work similar to me, but the hard part comes when I’m working with students whose learning style is different than my style. This is why we as teachers have to work hard to make our lessons focus on as many intelligences as we can so that every student can be included.
Dominick
Of the eight multiple intelligences Chapter 2 discusses different intelligences, one of which being musical. During the 18th century when Mozart was born music was beginning to become more appreciated. Mozart was born into a wealthy family which helped significantly in him being able to pursue the life that he was destined for. If he had not been born in those conditions during that time period, we may never had known who Mozart was. If Mozart had been born a few centuries before his intelligence most likely would never had been appreciated. If he was not born into wealth he also might have never been able to practice this intelligence. Since he was born in the 18th century in a wealthy family he was able to truly develop his musical intelligence. His intelligence may have very well had been wasted. Mozart was the roots of the musical world. He shaped the future of music forever. Mozart was a man that capitalized on the situation he was in. He dabbled in music and found his intelligence. He had an extremely high musical intelligence and managed to make history because of it. There are many people throughout history who managed to find their intelligence. Archimedes was a Greek philosopher and mathematician who managed to change life in Greece in almost every way related to math. He was even able to help Greece with their defense against foreign enemies using his mathematical intelligence. Pythagorus was another Greek mathematician who changed math forever. He practically invented Geometry and managed to come up with the Pythagorean theorem.
Cooper
Much of this chapter stuck out to me because it was almost exactly what we did in our first class. From our class I learned that as a learner I prefer musical and verbal styles for learning. I also tested highly for both interpersonal and intrapersonal while kinesthetic and visual graded towards the middle and naturalist and logical I graded towards the bottom. Having this information gives me the ability as a teacher to assess areas of weakness and seek out help from colleagues or students who excel in those areas. One thing I found that was important in the chapter was the section that told us to encourage students to work outside of their learning areas. If we encourage students to do exclusively what they’re comfortable with they will never become multi faceted learners and will start to feel that they are inadequate in other areas. I personally have had this experience with certain subject areas. When you are told that you should focus on other subjects or that one subject is not your strength it discourages you from ever working on that subject again. These can be formative moments in someone’s learning and an educator should take every opportunity to encourage students to work through their difficulties. Addressing areas of weakness is as important as identifying areas of strength. Using a test like the multiple intelligences test at the beginning of a semester could also help shape my lesson plan if I find that many students are visual learners I can try to shift my lessons accordingly, while keeping a healthy balance of other intelligences as well.
Katelin
I learned that the multiple intelligences that we learned in class are a huge role in the classroom. I have to realize what I do not have in me, and learn what my students do have in them to help them. Naturally, I will want to plan my lessons around how I would learn but I would really need to adapt to everyone in the class, not just myself. Team teaching was something that stood out to me. Ask my colleagues what they do for things that I may not be strong in. I absolutely loved that it said to ask your students to help and ask what they want more of. For example, I don’t think I am good at drawing and I do not think that whatever I draw will help them, especially in math, so I definitely could ask for their help. Something that stood out to me was the “crystallizing experiences” and the “paralyzing experiences” because I think these are very true and I would want to try to reverse the paralyzing experiences and create more crystallizing experiences in areas that students may not know that they have. If a student had a bad experience with math in the past, which is many students, they likely have given up and shut down at the thought of it. My goal would be to encourage them and give them the crystallizing moment that they really can do math, and they are not horrible at it. I felt that these two instances were very true moments in any one’s lives.
Cheyenne
Interesting thing: in the book’s version of the Multiple Intelligences test, while I still scored highly on the verbal/linguistic category, I did not score highly on the intrapersonal category. Instead, I got a much higher score in visual/spacial, which ended up matching my verbal/linguistic score. Because of this, I would say it is fairly important to keep in mind what kinds of questions/criteria are being asked when taking these tests, because it could change the answer. At this point, I’d kind of like to take a longer, more indepth version of the test to see just exactly where I fit in among all the intelligences. At this point, I’m fairly certain I would still be mainly verbal/linguistic, but I’d like to have a better idea of my secondary intelligence. Knowing about multiple intelligence is also really important in being a positive influence on a student’s life. In my own personal experience, I once had a French teacher who would look down on those students who were not excelling in his class, despite the fact that it was a fairly hostile and stifling environment. The very next year, under the instruction of a much younger French teacher (one who was actually teaching high school students for the first time), most of those struggling students succeeded and even thrived in her class. The difference being the older teacher had a rigid and hostile method of teaching where the younger one had a more open and flexible style of teaching. One allowed different intelligences to flourish while the other did not.
Lydia
This Chapter is about knowing yourself before you know your students. Knowing which of my multiple intelligences is the strongest as a teacher will impact my students in the way I will teach them. I learned that if you do not have the same intelligence strengths as your students you may not be able to get through to them in class. This will impact me because I need to find creative ways that I can get through to my students while still teaching the same content to everyone else. Knowing that I have higher strengths in the Interpersonal and Intrapersonal categories, I may not be able to find an effective way to teach someone that has a high musical or Kinesthetic intelligence. I have learned that as a teacher it is ok to look for outside resources if you are not an expert in something. You can ask for someone to come in and give a demonstration, or learn about something through a student who is willing to share their knowledge. I have also learned that if you don’t know your own strengths you will not be able to teach in an effective way. As a teacher you have to use your own knowledge as well as take knowledge from other resources and make a lesson that will fit everyone’s learning needs. By doing this students will be more excited about their classroom experience and may want to learn more on their own. To show off their intelligence I can give students the opportunity to show me what they have learned through any style they wish to show me.
Sara
Chapter two of Multiple Intelligences we learn the importance of knowing our own intelligences and understanding them. From a teachers perspective it is imperative that we understand ourselves and how our minds work before we can effectively help a student. By learning about ourselves first we are able to then understand our strengths and our weaknesses. We are than able to assess how we will able to accommodate for all the different types of intelligence that will be in our classrooms. It is also our job as educators to nurture student’s intelligences and be sure not to hinder them. If a student cannot sit still in class, instead of disciplining them and forcing them to sit still, you can incorporate ways that students will be able to move around while continuing to learn. While nature does play a role in intelligences, for example I have a low intelligence in musical, even with nurture from the education system and parental support. It is just not in my nature to be musical. However with mathematics, while nature did play a role, my intelligence in logical is due largely because of nurture. My mother also has a high intelligence in logical, and we spent a lot of time playing logic type games. Also in school I was given the opportunity to take many classes that required logical thinking. Knowing my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to intelligence will help me in the classroom because I already know what areas I may need help in. While it will not be easy for me to incorporate things such as linguistic or musical in my classroom, knowing this previously will allow me to prepare properly and ask for help from various resources to ensure all students can excel in my classroom.
Laura
This chapter encouraged me to think even more about which intelligences I may be “lacking” in and how I might be able to bring them into my future classroom despite the fact that I am not proficient in them. I really liked the suggestions that the chapter provided, particularly drawing on colleague’s expertise and the concept of team teaching (21), as well as asking students to help out (26). When I did a practicum course at my previous college, I was placed in a global literature class that was team-taught by an English teacher and a social studies teacher. Not only were they diverse in their areas of content and expertise, they also differed in terms of MI (as far as I could see, at least). For example, one of the teachers had a great deal of “naturalist” in her, which allowed her to connect well with a group of students who were crafting lobster traps for a service learning project. This particular group of students happened to be boys who had little interest in schoolwork and preferred to work outside as part of family businesses (some of which were in the lobstering business), but they were fully engrossed in the project with the guidance of their “naturalist” teacher. Another group of students worked closely with the other teacher, who happened to be a former cross country coach and was very kinesthetic, to organize a 5k for their service learning project. After reading this chapter and looking back, I can see even more of the benefits of having teachers with differing intelligences because it allows them to learn from each other and to connect to a larger range of students.
Sarah
As an educator chapter 2 tells me that I should first apply a model of learning to myself before I apply it in my classroom. This means that I need to determine the nature and quality of my own multiple intelligences and seek ways to develop them in my own life. I learned that the purpose of the multiple intelligence inventory is to begin to connect my life experiences with the eight intelligences. In order to accomplish this I need to look back in my experiences with the eight intelligences. As a teacher I will have to know how to tap resources in the intelligences that I would typical shy away from in classroom use. One of the best ways to do this is to draw on colleague’s expertise. In this chapter I also learned that there is 3 factors that an intelligence’s development depends on. The first is biological meaning that genetic factors or brain damage can influence an intelligence’s development. The second is an individual’s personal life history meaning experiences with parents, teachers, peers, and friends who either awaken an intelligence or keep it from developing by actively repressing the individual. The third factor is an individual’s cultural and historical background, in other words the time and place in which someone was born and raised. The second factor is particularly important to know as a teacher because as a teacher you wouldn’t want to repress a student from developing any of the intelligences. The other two important things that I learned about in this chapter where crystallizing experiences and paralyzing experiences. As a teacher I want to provide crystallizing experiences so that a spark is created that can help a student develop talents and abilities that develop one of the eight intelligences.
Shane
To me the key points that stand out to about multiple intelligences would be having to figure ourselves out before we can figure our students out. We figured out in class what intelligence we have and in a way we can think about how that will impact our students in the future. I am a kinesthetic intelligence style learner. I am going to be the type of teacher that sits on his desk and talks with my hands or paces around during the lecture. That can impact my class because it can be very distracting to people with different learning styles. The next most important part of this chapter to me was the part about how we go about knowing our students intelligences. As teachers we can not shoot out students down we need to help them grow as learners. Just because I have someone in my class who is a particular learning style does not mean that they have a weak or strong intelligence. I have to try to help them grow and develop as a learner. I really enjoyed the example about Mozart. There is always the what if factor in life and sometimes things don’t always go as planned. Just because he was born with a strong biological endowment doesn't mean he should not work on other things in his life. Grasping the concept that students can and should develop multiple intelligences makes a lot of sense to me as a future educator because it will open options up in their lives for many other different factors. This can carry over to help them be well rounded and be able to handle curveballs thrown at them. Understanding not only how my mind works but others as well will help me greatly in the classroom.
Cory
There were two main ideas that I got out of this chapter. The first is that we should apply this model of intelligence to ourselves before we apply it to our students. I personally agree with this because I am a practice what you preach kind of person. I dislike it when someone tells me to do something that they don’t believe in or don’t want to/can’t do themselves. I think that if you want to apply something to your students, you must first apply it to yourself. I think that it only helps you understand it more. Once you fully understand how you aren’t perfect in very kind of intelligence, you will understand that your students aren’t as well. This plays right into the next main idea I got from this chapter; a teacher has to create a learning environment that fosters the growth of all or most of the intelligences, not just one. A teacher can’t write off a student for being less skilled in a certain intelligence. I think that a teacher has to first identify which intelligences each student isn’t sufficient in. Once they figure out where they aren’t the most intelligent, a teacher should find a way to focus on teaching them in ways that maximize each intelligence they are strongest in. Even though you won’t be strengthening their other intelligences, you are using the easiest and most direct way to reach a student; and reaching a student is the ultimate goal of every teacher.
Table of Contents
Abstract Chapter 2 MI
CheyenneThis chapter focuses on looking at multiple intelligences from a personal point of view, rather than just a way that students learn. It stresses how important it is for us as teachers to know and understand where our intelligences lie and how that might affect our teaching. If we are only teaching in a way that suits our intelligences, we are likely to leave behind many students that do not learn the way we do. The chapter also gives us insight into helping reach every kind of learner, including asking colleagues and even consulting the students themselves, but there are many other simple ways to reach all types of students. This chapter also stresses the importance of allowing these intelligences to flourish, and allowing students to discover and develop their intelligences.
Synthesis Chapter 2 MI
CheyenneMost members of our class highlighted the importance of understanding ourselves as learners before we can understand our students. It allows us to not only assess our strong points, but to make note of our weaknesses in order to better adapt and learn to incorporate them into our classes. There were some concerns about being able to address intelligences that we do not excel in, and one way to work on that may be to explore the other intelligences and develop them on our own. One thing that was noted several times is the fact that we are lacking in some MI areas, which means our students will be too. Incorporating all kinds of intelligences in our classes results in our students being exposed to them as well, and possibly excelling in an area they were either previously weak in, or had never had the chance to develop. Another thing that many of us focused on were the terms crystallizing and paralyzing experiences. Many of us are adamant about not letting our classes be a paralyzing experience for any students, and instead are determined to foster any developing intelligences we might notice in students.
Rhi
As we read more about MI, the more I consider how my students will relate and be different from each other... Many of the students will have similar intelligences considering there are only eight types, but each of them will be slightly different. Working with each student and finding out how they learn is something that I'm both nervous and excited about because there's only one teacher and there will be more students, yet they will each have their own individual ideas and preferences that they can bring to the class. The students will have their own ways of learning, as well as I have my own way of learning which then will reflect on how I teach. It's important to me that I understand how each of my students learn so that I can help them to get the most out of my classes. Differentiating each lesson will be crucial in incorporating and engaging every student into every lesson. First knowing how I learn helps me to then be able to work with students who work similar to me, but the hard part comes when I’m working with students whose learning style is different than my style. This is why we as teachers have to work hard to make our lessons focus on as many intelligences as we can so that every student can be included.Dominick
Of the eight multiple intelligences Chapter 2 discusses different intelligences, one of which being musical. During the 18th century when Mozart was born music was beginning to become more appreciated. Mozart was born into a wealthy family which helped significantly in him being able to pursue the life that he was destined for. If he had not been born in those conditions during that time period, we may never had known who Mozart was. If Mozart had been born a few centuries before his intelligence most likely would never had been appreciated. If he was not born into wealth he also might have never been able to practice this intelligence. Since he was born in the 18th century in a wealthy family he was able to truly develop his musical intelligence. His intelligence may have very well had been wasted. Mozart was the roots of the musical world. He shaped the future of music forever. Mozart was a man that capitalized on the situation he was in. He dabbled in music and found his intelligence. He had an extremely high musical intelligence and managed to make history because of it. There are many people throughout history who managed to find their intelligence. Archimedes was a Greek philosopher and mathematician who managed to change life in Greece in almost every way related to math. He was even able to help Greece with their defense against foreign enemies using his mathematical intelligence. Pythagorus was another Greek mathematician who changed math forever. He practically invented Geometry and managed to come up with the Pythagorean theorem.Cooper
Much of this chapter stuck out to me because it was almost exactly what we did in our first class. From our class I learned that as a learner I prefer musical and verbal styles for learning. I also tested highly for both interpersonal and intrapersonal while kinesthetic and visual graded towards the middle and naturalist and logical I graded towards the bottom. Having this information gives me the ability as a teacher to assess areas of weakness and seek out help from colleagues or students who excel in those areas. One thing I found that was important in the chapter was the section that told us to encourage students to work outside of their learning areas. If we encourage students to do exclusively what they’re comfortable with they will never become multi faceted learners and will start to feel that they are inadequate in other areas. I personally have had this experience with certain subject areas. When you are told that you should focus on other subjects or that one subject is not your strength it discourages you from ever working on that subject again. These can be formative moments in someone’s learning and an educator should take every opportunity to encourage students to work through their difficulties. Addressing areas of weakness is as important as identifying areas of strength. Using a test like the multiple intelligences test at the beginning of a semester could also help shape my lesson plan if I find that many students are visual learners I can try to shift my lessons accordingly, while keeping a healthy balance of other intelligences as well.Katelin
I learned that the multiple intelligences that we learned in class are a huge role in the classroom. I have to realize what I do not have in me, and learn what my students do have in them to help them. Naturally, I will want to plan my lessons around how I would learn but I would really need to adapt to everyone in the class, not just myself. Team teaching was something that stood out to me. Ask my colleagues what they do for things that I may not be strong in. I absolutely loved that it said to ask your students to help and ask what they want more of. For example, I don’t think I am good at drawing and I do not think that whatever I draw will help them, especially in math, so I definitely could ask for their help. Something that stood out to me was the “crystallizing experiences” and the “paralyzing experiences” because I think these are very true and I would want to try to reverse the paralyzing experiences and create more crystallizing experiences in areas that students may not know that they have. If a student had a bad experience with math in the past, which is many students, they likely have given up and shut down at the thought of it. My goal would be to encourage them and give them the crystallizing moment that they really can do math, and they are not horrible at it. I felt that these two instances were very true moments in any one’s lives.Cheyenne
Interesting thing: in the book’s version of the Multiple Intelligences test, while I still scored highly on the verbal/linguistic category, I did not score highly on the intrapersonal category. Instead, I got a much higher score in visual/spacial, which ended up matching my verbal/linguistic score. Because of this, I would say it is fairly important to keep in mind what kinds of questions/criteria are being asked when taking these tests, because it could change the answer. At this point, I’d kind of like to take a longer, more indepth version of the test to see just exactly where I fit in among all the intelligences. At this point, I’m fairly certain I would still be mainly verbal/linguistic, but I’d like to have a better idea of my secondary intelligence.Knowing about multiple intelligence is also really important in being a positive influence on a student’s life. In my own personal experience, I once had a French teacher who would look down on those students who were not excelling in his class, despite the fact that it was a fairly hostile and stifling environment. The very next year, under the instruction of a much younger French teacher (one who was actually teaching high school students for the first time), most of those struggling students succeeded and even thrived in her class. The difference being the older teacher had a rigid and hostile method of teaching where the younger one had a more open and flexible style of teaching. One allowed different intelligences to flourish while the other did not.
Lydia
This Chapter is about knowing yourself before you know your students. Knowing which of my multiple intelligences is the strongest as a teacher will impact my students in the way I will teach them. I learned that if you do not have the same intelligence strengths as your students you may not be able to get through to them in class. This will impact me because I need to find creative ways that I can get through to my students while still teaching the same content to everyone else. Knowing that I have higher strengths in the Interpersonal and Intrapersonal categories, I may not be able to find an effective way to teach someone that has a high musical or Kinesthetic intelligence.I have learned that as a teacher it is ok to look for outside resources if you are not an expert in something. You can ask for someone to come in and give a demonstration, or learn about something through a student who is willing to share their knowledge. I have also learned that if you don’t know your own strengths you will not be able to teach in an effective way. As a teacher you have to use your own knowledge as well as take knowledge from other resources and make a lesson that will fit everyone’s learning needs. By doing this students will be more excited about their classroom experience and may want to learn more on their own. To show off their intelligence I can give students the opportunity to show me what they have learned through any style they wish to show me.
Sara
Chapter two of Multiple Intelligences we learn the importance of knowing our own intelligences and understanding them. From a teachers perspective it is imperative that we understand ourselves and how our minds work before we can effectively help a student. By learning about ourselves first we are able to then understand our strengths and our weaknesses. We are than able to assess how we will able to accommodate for all the different types of intelligence that will be in our classrooms.It is also our job as educators to nurture student’s intelligences and be sure not to hinder them. If a student cannot sit still in class, instead of disciplining them and forcing them to sit still, you can incorporate ways that students will be able to move around while continuing to learn. While nature does play a role in intelligences, for example I have a low intelligence in musical, even with nurture from the education system and parental support. It is just not in my nature to be musical. However with mathematics, while nature did play a role, my intelligence in logical is due largely because of nurture. My mother also has a high intelligence in logical, and we spent a lot of time playing logic type games. Also in school I was given the opportunity to take many classes that required logical thinking.
Knowing my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to intelligence will help me in the classroom because I already know what areas I may need help in. While it will not be easy for me to incorporate things such as linguistic or musical in my classroom, knowing this previously will allow me to prepare properly and ask for help from various resources to ensure all students can excel in my classroom.
Laura
This chapter encouraged me to think even more about which intelligences I may be “lacking” in and how I might be able to bring them into my future classroom despite the fact that I am not proficient in them. I really liked the suggestions that the chapter provided, particularly drawing on colleague’s expertise and the concept of team teaching (21), as well as asking students to help out (26). When I did a practicum course at my previous college, I was placed in a global literature class that was team-taught by an English teacher and a social studies teacher. Not only were they diverse in their areas of content and expertise, they also differed in terms of MI (as far as I could see, at least). For example, one of the teachers had a great deal of “naturalist” in her, which allowed her to connect well with a group of students who were crafting lobster traps for a service learning project. This particular group of students happened to be boys who had little interest in schoolwork and preferred to work outside as part of family businesses (some of which were in the lobstering business), but they were fully engrossed in the project with the guidance of their “naturalist” teacher. Another group of students worked closely with the other teacher, who happened to be a former cross country coach and was very kinesthetic, to organize a 5k for their service learning project. After reading this chapter and looking back, I can see even more of the benefits of having teachers with differing intelligences because it allows them to learn from each other and to connect to a larger range of students.Sarah
As an educator chapter 2 tells me that I should first apply a model of learning to myself before I apply it in my classroom. This means that I need to determine the nature and quality of my own multiple intelligences and seek ways to develop them in my own life. I learned that the purpose of the multiple intelligence inventory is to begin to connect my life experiences with the eight intelligences. In order to accomplish this I need to look back in my experiences with the eight intelligences. As a teacher I will have to know how to tap resources in the intelligences that I would typical shy away from in classroom use. One of the best ways to do this is to draw on colleague’s expertise. In this chapter I also learned that there is 3 factors that an intelligence’s development depends on. The first is biological meaning that genetic factors or brain damage can influence an intelligence’s development. The second is an individual’s personal life history meaning experiences with parents, teachers, peers, and friends who either awaken an intelligence or keep it from developing by actively repressing the individual. The third factor is an individual’s cultural and historical background, in other words the time and place in which someone was born and raised. The second factor is particularly important to know as a teacher because as a teacher you wouldn’t want to repress a student from developing any of the intelligences. The other two important things that I learned about in this chapter where crystallizing experiences and paralyzing experiences. As a teacher I want to provide crystallizing experiences so that a spark is created that can help a student develop talents and abilities that develop one of the eight intelligences.Shane
To me the key points that stand out to about multiple intelligences would be having to figure ourselves out before we can figure our students out. We figured out in class what intelligence we have and in a way we can think about how that will impact our students in the future. I am a kinesthetic intelligence style learner. I am going to be the type of teacher that sits on his desk and talks with my hands or paces around during the lecture. That can impact my class because it can be very distracting to people with different learning styles. The next most important part of this chapter to me was the part about how we go about knowing our students intelligences. As teachers we can not shoot out students down we need to help them grow as learners. Just because I have someone in my class who is a particular learning style does not mean that they have a weak or strong intelligence. I have to try to help them grow and develop as a learner. I really enjoyed the example about Mozart. There is always the what if factor in life and sometimes things don’t always go as planned. Just because he was born with a strong biological endowment doesn't mean he should not work on other things in his life. Grasping the concept that students can and should develop multiple intelligences makes a lot of sense to me as a future educator because it will open options up in their lives for many other different factors. This can carry over to help them be well rounded and be able to handle curveballs thrown at them. Understanding not only how my mind works but others as well will help me greatly in the classroom.Cory
There were two main ideas that I got out of this chapter. The first is that we should apply this model of intelligence to ourselves before we apply it to our students. I personally agree with this because I am a practice what you preach kind of person. I dislike it when someone tells me to do something that they don’t believe in or don’t want to/can’t do themselves. I think that if you want to apply something to your students, you must first apply it to yourself. I think that it only helps you understand it more. Once you fully understand how you aren’t perfect in very kind of intelligence, you will understand that your students aren’t as well. This plays right into the next main idea I got from this chapter; a teacher has to create a learning environment that fosters the growth of all or most of the intelligences, not just one. A teacher can’t write off a student for being less skilled in a certain intelligence. I think that a teacher has to first identify which intelligences each student isn’t sufficient in. Once they figure out where they aren’t the most intelligent, a teacher should find a way to focus on teaching them in ways that maximize each intelligence they are strongest in. Even though you won’t be strengthening their other intelligences, you are using the easiest and most direct way to reach a student; and reaching a student is the ultimate goal of every teacher.